ORCA 58

Caught in the unexpected development, Orca, who had no time to stop it, was kissed and readily opened his mouth. There was no reason to refuse the honest and bold desire that invaded him.

Only after sucking to his heart’s content did Niah let Orca go. Orca was the one who had it done to him, but it was Niah who was panting for breath. Orca watched the dazed face of Niah, who was steadying his breathing with a hand on Orca’s shoulder. He fiddled with Niah’s thighs and the back of his knees, then caressed the bare skin under his shirt. He barely managed to stop the hand trying to enter his trousers and just patted his bottom a few times. Pat, pat.

“You don’t listen.”

“I’m sorry… But, haah, I couldn’t help it.”

“Yes. You did well.”

Somehow exhausted, Niah sluggishly snuggled into his arms. Orca had to seriously wonder what on earth he had done to make him like this. His hands, reaching for Niah’s waist and thighs to help him settle into his embrace, were cautious. Orca, recalling his own goldfish who had passed out right after ejaculating a few times, easily understood the current situation. Besides, Niah must have worked more than usual today, and it was also the time he would normally be taking a nap.

In his eyes, Niah was as endlessly frail as the last time. He looked like the sickest patient in the world. Thinking that it would be fine if one goldfish was lost, Orca moved his hands leisurely, intending to put him to sleep just like this. He gently patted Niah’s still-heaving chest. As he resolved to do something about this pathetic stamina that was exhausted by a mere kiss, he suddenly whispered a childish demand into Niah’s ear.

“Niah. Don’t talk about that kind of stuff with him.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“About you.”

“Um… Uumm… Oranges?”

“Yes. Talk to me about things like that.”

Niah, who had been leaning his head on Orca’s shoulder line, pulled away slightly. He met his eyes for a moment, hesitating, then quietly confessed the curiosity he hadn’t been able to satisfy earlier. His voice was a mixture of curiosity and hesitation. If the young master had ever met another goldfish besides him, and if that goldfish was smarter than him, he thought he would become depressed. His heart would turn blackish, and he would likely come to hate that goldfish he had never even met.

“In that case, young master. Have you… ever met a goldfish? Besides me, another goldfish.”

“No. I only have you. Niah. Do you want to meet other goldfish?”

“Uh… um… no…? It’s not that I want to meet them. I was just curious…”

Orca looked suspiciously at Niah, who was shaking his head, and lightly tapped their foreheads together. Feeling somewhat anxious, Niah stealthily clutched the hand resting on his stomach.

At the question of whether he wanted to meet them, the thought suddenly rushed in: had he ever lived with other goldfish, and did he, like Harriet, have a younger sibling or a family? It was something he had never once thought about until now. He had never wished for them to exist.

All he had were memories of being alone in a small, dark room—a closet under the stairs on the 6th floor of the Ware family mansion. He didn’t make absurd wishes or prayers. Thus, the young master was his first desire. He was a sparkling bundle of greed that he failed to let go of every time.

Orca resolved to firmly warn Hilda not to exchange words with his goldfish. The question, which lacked context, felt disagreeable. He felt as if the goldfish that should have stayed within his boundaries had briskly flapped its fins and fled far away.

He had to struggle to compose his expression, which was unconsciously about to crumple due to being quite displeased. He silently exchanged gazes with the pale yellow eyes for a while. After watching the round pupils that fluttered this way and that, he opened his mouth, feigning composure.

“Did he say he’s met them before?”

“Yees. So I was curious, and I asked him about that.”

“What did he say.”

“Uh, well, the young master came right then, so I couldn’t get an answer… but since you told me not to talk about it, I won’t ask anymore.”

“Ask me. I might know.”

Niah hesitated for a long time. He carefully chose his words and organized his thoughts. The question that had been about to pop right out in front of that nobleman earlier didn’t come out easily in front of the young master. He had thought he could now say anything to the young master, but this curiosity was difficult to confess. It couldn’t be helped, because the young master sometimes made a pained expression because of him. However, he didn’t feel like lying. It seemed that him trying to gloss over it with a lie would make the young master even more upset.

“It’s just that I forget things easily. I was curious if all goldfish are like that…”

“……”

“If, if I’m the only stupid one, then, I think it would feel a little unfair… I can’t remember anything, so if I’m the only one like that, it’s too…”

“Niah.”

He started off in a tone that was as nonchalant as possible, but the more he spoke, the more sullen he became. Orca pulled Niah into an embrace that crushed him against his chest. Ughh, the body that let out a small, groan-like scream was flattened. Niah blamed himself for upsetting his young master again. Should I have lied after all, he wondered, wavering, then clung to the embrace. Young master, young master, he let out a series of baseless calls and then hurriedly added.

“Th-that, I won’t forget the young master… I won’t. Um, uumm… A promise, I’ll make a promise too. If I can’t keep it, please punish me, okay?”

When no answer came back, Niah hurriedly broke away from Orca and faced him again. He was instead flustered by the arm that pushed away more easily than expected and wrapped his arms tightly around his neck in a desperate gesture. He bent his waist and hugged him as if cradling him, not knowing what to do.

“Young master…”

His lost pupils scattered here and there. Tears welled up in his eyes when he didn’t feel the pressure of an embrace in return. Niah came to hate himself for constantly making his young master sad. This was all because of the “stupid goldfish.”

But the one who wanted to cry right now was not Niah, but Orca. Orca, who hadn’t properly cried since he was a baby, couldn’t express what he was feeling at that moment. Sadness. Despair. Anguish. Pain. Fear. Terror. He didn’t dare to define it with any of those.

He would become endlessly weak in front of this tiny goldfish. He became the enormous prey of a small, weak predator that hunted only him, and was steeped in a terrible sense of powerlessness. A mere few words pierced and shredded his thick hide like sharp harpoons. The footless beast exposed its belly and floated to the surface. Each time the goldfish’s fingernail-sized fin flapped, he was swept far away by the gentle current.

“Every time you do this, I…”

Orca’s throat bobbed greatly. The voice that flowed out was tinged with raw, unprecedentedly shabby emotions.

“I keep having bad thoughts. I don’t want to tell you, I don’t want to get caught, but every time you do this… my mind is a mess. Inside me, I’m constantly, constantly breaking you and swallowing you whole. Do you know? Without leaving a single piece of bone, without spilling a single drop of blood, down to a single strand of your hair, everything, I just want to eat all of it.”

Niah listened silently to the rambling, incoherent words. He listened intently to the remarks that others would find gruesome. Strangely, his expression was faintly thrilled. A strange light shone in his excited eyes.

“From head to toe, swallowing even your insides, so, so, I wish you would just become me. Killing someone like you is so easy for me, I could even swallow you in one painless bite. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to, but sometimes I really, …I want to kill you.”

Orca raised his limp arms and held onto Niah. As if holding a fragile egg, he pulled him closer haltingly, with all the strength drained from his body so that Niah could escape from him at any time. Instead, it was Niah who wrapped his arms tightly around him. He hugged him tight as if he would disappear if he let go.

“That someday I might actually hurt you,”

“It’s okay.”

“…What are you saying right now,”

“I like it.”

Orca pushed Niah, who was cheerfully affirming, away from him. He couldn’t tell if the heh-heh smiling face was a hallucination or real.

The goldfish opened his mouth with a calm and gentle tone. He pulled out his inner thoughts nonchalantly, in the same voice he always used when repeatedly calling flowers cute. The thought occurred to him that the coward was not the goldfish, but him.

“Young master. You know. I like you, young master. At first, I liked you because you treated me well. Other people don’t, they all hate me, but only you are nice to me, so, I think that’s why I liked you. But you know what. It’s not like that anymore. I like it even if you are mean to me. It’s okay if you hurt me. So being eaten is okay too. Because then I won’t be able to forget you, young master.”

Niah smiled brightly. He had an expression of relief. He wore a happy face as if a long-held wish had come true.

“Me. I’m actually not confident, young master. I can’t even remember well when I came to the mansion. I can’t remember anything from the past. I only remember things like flowers and trees. It’s strange, isn’t it. I forget everything else, but not them. But you can’t turn into a flower, young master. I don’t want to forget you, young master.”

Orca just listened to the story that continued without hesitation as if it had been prepared. He had never imagined that the childish, prank-like confessions he had babbled on about at all hours could contain such a colossal meaning. The doubt of whether he could have returned it in kind if he had known beforehand arose first. The small body looked larger than his own.

“I know this is all my own greed. But I still don’t want to. So I’m not scared of being eaten. But, but not right now. Not now, um…”

The fact that while he was struggling, creating deadlines and drawing lines to avoid unfamiliar emotions, the goldfish was collecting those emotions one by one and handing them to him, made him feel deeply ashamed. It was clear that these were emotions the goldfish had also come to realize clumsily, but unlike him, who only thought of ways to escape, the goldfish had accepted and cherished them completely. The coward was not the goldfish; it was definitely him.

This time, Niah asked, as if hesitating a little.

“Young master. When… are you leaving…?”

“When summer ends.”

Orca answered curtly and pulled Niah back to him. He took both of Niah’s wrists and made him wrap them around his neck, while he himself hugged Niah’s waist and rested his cheek against his flat stomach. The fact that he had to leave when summer passed remained unchanged, but irresponsibly, he began to feel that it didn’t matter.

“But I’m not eating you. If I eat you, I can’t see you again.”

Thump-thump-thump, a loud heartbeat could be heard. He couldn’t tell if it was the sound the goldfish was making, or if it was his own, or if they were all mixed together. The regular beat synchronized into one and flowed in a constant wave. He was still incompetent and powerless, and he didn’t know of any solution, but it didn’t matter. The primitive impulse came to a resolute end, as if it had been planned.

“Young master, will you, will you come again…?”

“Yes.”

“But what if I forget everything, then what?”

What if he lived in a lake instead of the sea? What if he could live holding a small goldfish in the quiet water, without any troubles or waves? What if they could stagnate together in a round lake where worrying about the goldfish being swept away by the current was a luxury, and they could enjoy a quiet and comfortable peace without needing to worry about what if I forget, what if I am forgotten?

However, Orca could not live in a lake. Being a beastman, he could swim, of course, but he wouldn’t be able to spend his entire life inside that small lake. Conversely, Niah couldn’t live in the sea either. Especially in Orca’s sea, the deep, cold sea where large waves swell, he could not survive.

Orca turned his head, rested his chin, and looked up at Niah. When the time came, he would leave for his sea. The captain of the Orcus Battalion of the 1st Division of the Border Guard, the young master of the killer whale family Ware, the king on the chessboard, the one who follows the name Ware, Orca Ware. The many titles that preceded his name sometimes became a reason to leave, and sometimes a reason not to want to return here to Roselphia.

“Flowers and trees, …Sansevieria, Lithops, tomatoes, Linaria… What else was there?”

“Pardon?”

“The things you remember. The pretty and cute things.”

“Uh…”

“You said I was pretty. Was that a lie?”

Nevertheless, there was only one reason to return.

The half-ripe emotions he had named ‘Niah’ gathered in one place. The emotions of unknown identity had been appetite, then fear, then curiosity, then the arrogance that he would forget everything, then a complex wave that couldn’t be defined, then a fear like an epidemic, then a powerlessness that suffocated him, then lust, then a grace filled by trivial things, then a gratitude for merely being alive and breathing, and finally, they were again named ‘Niah’, filling him completely and dyeing him in a dazzling orange illusion.

“Niah.”

“No. You are pretty. The young master is pretty.”

Niah lowered his posture, their body heat overlapping. Slender fingers preciously wrapped around Orca. Far more preciously than how his young master cherished him, as if touching a rare and valuable object, he carefully and tenderly embraced him.

Hunting was an indispensable amusement at parties. The nobles participating in the hunting competition each got dressed up, made bets with someone, or boasted of their past exploits while laughing and joking.

Meanwhile, the stable hands brought out the horses one by one, held each rein firmly, and placed the saddles. As befitting the horses of noble families, their well-groomed coats shone with a glossy sheen. Their demurely standing figures were full of dignity.

Hilda, standing next to a horse with a dark brown coat, looked around for Orca. As a bonus, she scanned various parts of the garden for Niah’s orange hair. She looked for a long time, but there was no sign of the two. She stomped her foot in frustration.

Orca had left the mansion early on and was at the lake. He was holding the reins of the black horse that had been with him in land battles since his time in the Border Guard regular army, before he was appointed captain of the Orcus Battalion.

Niah, standing beside them, couldn’t look properly at Orca, who was dressed in form-fitting riding clothes. The white riding breeches that clearly revealed his thigh muscles were too provocative. Niah, who had his eyes cast sharply upwards, looking at the sky, was pulled close by Orca. The black horse, at the unfamiliar presence that came right up to its nose, snorted, phroo, blowing air from its nostrils.